Song:Get Together
Album:Get Together: The Essential Youngbloods
Today Get Together is viewed as an late 60s anthem of peace. It was a fluke top five hit for the folk rock group The Youngbloods and they likely would have sunk without a trace otherwise. The group leader was Jesse Colin Young (born Perry Miller Nov. 11, 1941 in Queen's, NY). He had been hanging around the Greenwich Village folk scene and released a couple of solo albums in 1964. He met Jerry Corbitt and they started playing together in 1965 as The Youngbloods. Pianist Lowell "Banana" Levinger and dummer Joe Bauer joined up and their gigs in folk clubs landed them a contract with RCA. They had one minor hit with the Corbitt song Grizzly Bear. According to Young, RCA tried to sell them as a bubble gum act instead of the folk rock act that they were. Get Together was originally released in 1967 and flopped. The song was written by Chet Powers AKA Dino Valente of Quicksilver Messenger Service and had originally been recorded by The Kingston Trio in 1964. Others had recorded it too. But then in 1969 The Youngbloods version of Get Together was the theme song for a public service announcement by the National Council Of Christians And Jews. RCA rereleased the song and it reached #5 on the pop charts. Corbitt left The Youngbloods in 1969 for a solo career that failed. He was replaced by Michael Kane. By 1972, The Youngbloods split up and Jesse Colin Young signed a solo contract with Warner Bros. This comp cover The Youngbloods RCA recordings. Levinger, Bauer & Kane had an unsuccessful group called Noggins. Young, Corbitt & Levinger reunited for a Youngbloods tour in 1984 but Young has mostly recorded solo for years and he is currently concentrating on reissuing his older albums on CD. Here are The Youngbloods performing Get Together on The Hollywood Palace 1970.
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